An Affordable Alternative for Business Accounting; Startup ProfitBooks

In a small business, the entrepreneur is expected to have all the necessary skill sets to run it. Of all the skill sets, accounting is very important and there are many technology products that assist in effective management of funds. However, not all software is affordable by small businesses and ProfitBooks aims

to address that very problem. Furthermore, it aims at making a more easy to use so as to reduce the burden on an already stretched entrepreneur.Harshal Katre, worked with HSBC Global Technology for over 7 years and over 2 years at Barclays Technology Center before quitting his job to start up. His brother and co-founder Mr. Mohnish Katre is a Chartered Accountant and has been active in finance field since last 7 years. “While working with these MNCs, I got a great exposure to the finance world. Applications which these big companies use to manage their business come at a very high cost. I wanted to build an affordable solution for Indian SMEs which will help them organize their business using latest technologies. That’s how ProfitBooks was born,” says Harshal.

Harshal further shares that they designed ProfitBooks with an aim to replace the many stand alone applications used in a business with one powerful tool.

ProfitBooks has acquired 150 paying users for their software, but Harshal shares that this hasn't come easily. He says, “Initially we had a tough time to change the mind-set of traditional users to use an online application. Surprisingly, most of them didn't even know that they need to pay for an accounting application as they were using pirated version of a popular software Also, internet penetration in India is still an issue and until that is resolved it’s difficult for people to get accustomed to online applications. But with the growing broadband penetration and increasing 3G usage, the situation seems to improve very soon.”ProfitBooks currently offers 3 plans - Essential plan for basic accounting, Plus plan for inventory management and Professional plan for managing Payroll. All these plans come with collaboration features like internal messaging, notepad, task management and document management. It also offer third party integration with popular web applications like Dropbox. The subscription fees starts at Rs.375 per month and they are also working on the ‘Auditor Edition’ which will enable auditors to work on different companies from a single account.

ProfitBooks is a useful tool and as a result they have a high rate of customer acquisition. With aims of expanding to more cities, ProfitBooks is looking to raise funding in the near future.